


Stutter

by elevenelvenswords



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, No happiness for poor Celebrimbor, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 11:37:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17079620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elevenelvenswords/pseuds/elevenelvenswords
Summary: Stutter, verb: talk with continued involuntary repetition of sounds, especially initial consonants.





	Stutter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crackinthecup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/gifts).



> This is for my very good friend, @crackinthecup <3 Happy birthday!

_Stutter, verb: talk with continued involuntary repetition of sounds, especially initial consonants._

* * *

 

 It was dark. That’s the first thing he could remember when he looked back on that dreadful night. Darkness seemed to swallow up everything around them, and had it not been for the turbulent sea, furious waves crashing against the shore, Celebrimbor couldn’t really tell where they were. Something big was coming. Something big and nefarious that he would never forget.

He was scared. Fear and anxiety prickled through his tense body as he watched his kindred handing spears and bows and long, sharp swords to each other, for never before had he seen the Eldar carrying such strange objects with them, and why this was happening he could not quite comprehend. He watched his father crafting them before, yes, and he heard his grandfather talking about them many a time after the Dark Vala –for this is what they called him- was released from the Halls of Mandos. Yet those weapons, those bringers of death were never put to use. This caused Celebrimbor’s eyebrows to furrow in confusion, his narrowed eyes inspecting the way his uncle, Tyelko, swung a short sword in his hand, its freshly sharpened blade slicing through the air with a low whistle.  

‘It’s all right, Tyelpe,’ he heard Kano reassuring him, his warm voice being in such stark contrast with the atmosphere around him, ‘There’s no need to be so rigid. Nothing bad is going to happen, okay?’

His uncle placed a hand upon Celebrimbor’s shoulder, and he felt himself breathing a little easier.  

‘Okay…’

Celebrimbor had never been a talkative person; he always kept his secrets to himself, he would rather spend his time in company of Huan rather than in the company of those in his family, and he would often wander around the great city of Tirion alone. He had never been able to openly share his feelings, instead he concealed them, he let them freeze on their own deep inside of him, hoping that the ice around them would shatter at some point, and with it, the feelings too. Thus, all that he could say was ‘okay’. Though he felt as though his chest might burst and that his knees would buckle.

He was so young when it happened. He had barely reached his teenage years when the First Kinslaying took place at Alqualonde. And though he did not take part in the horrific bloodshed, their screams, their anguish, the smell of decay remained deeply embedded in his heart, and like a constant reminder the memories ached and burned and scorched him.

It was dark when he saw Nelyo’s scars too. He could still see it: his uncles encircling their eldest brother’s bed, where he lay motionless, as if he were already dead. They whispered things among each other, they shared nods and curses, and he couldn’t know what they were talking about. He wanted to listen, truly he did, yet blackness grew and grew at the peripheries of his vision as his eyes scanned Nelyo’s pitiful form: a little dying thing he seemed, his bones almost puncturing the bruised skin, and the scars. Oh, the scars. Celebrimbor could not even imagine the horrors Nelyo had to go through in order to gain them. He didn’t want to imagine that, no. He felt his stomach turning upside down when his eyes met his uncle’s almost disfigured face. Nervously he bit down on his lip to stop the overwhelming flood of tears threatening to fall down his cheeks as his father approached him.

‘Look at me, Tyelpe, look at me.’ he could recall his father saying, ‘It is all going to be all right. We will take care of this, okay? Nelyo is going to be fine. He needs rest and a lot of care, but he will be all right.’

His father’s lie didn’t slip unnoticed, for Celebrimbor was smart enough to figure that Nelyo would not be all right.  

Yet ‘Okay…’ he whispered back, just before leaving the tent for some fresh air.

_Okay, okay, okay_. He muttered that word to himself long after he returned to his own tent, long after they first helped some broth trickle down Nelyo’s throat –his first decent meal in years, Celebrimbor suspected-, long after Nelyo renounced his name and started calling himself Maedhros instead. For Celebrimbor dearly hoped that everything would be okay in the end. No matter how unlikely it sounded to him, he still had hope that it would be okay.

And, for a little while, things really did turn out okay for him. Everything felt all right as the naked elf beside him hugged against his chest, as he plated tiny kisses across his collar bone. Everything was so exquisitely perfect in the harmonious press of bodies, in the stiffening of flesh under tender ministrations, in the wondrous kisses shared under the clear moonlight. Or the ones shared in secret within Nargothrond’s vast halls. This secret bond of theirs never failed to send annoyingly pleasant arousal rippling unbidden through his body. And he knew that Aredhel’s son felt the same way. He knew. All those times Maeglin had whispered ‘I love you’ in his flushed ear, all those times Maeglin had readily spread his legs for him, baring his soul in front of him, Celebrimbor knew that Maeglin meant it. He knew that his cousin was deeply in love with him. Like the northern raspy winds the realisation struck him- and oh how an awful premonition stung him.

Bit by bit, it voraciously ate his heart. It gnawed at him, it burned him. Yet he didn’t give voice to his worries, and he let it all slide. Nothing bad would happen to either him or Maeglin. He wouldn’t allow it. He was older now, he could defend himself and his lover. Yes, he could do that.  

It was getting dark when he lay on his back in the tall grass with Maeglin atop him. It was not dark yet. That darkness could not touch them, he desperately thought as he locked his lips on his cousin’s, and he moaned when he felt the familiar slender fingers worming their way beneath his tunic.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Celebrimbor heard Maeglin ask at some point. His breath hitched in his lungs.

‘You,’ he lied, and he immediately felt sick.  

Maeglin made no reply. He simply kissed Celebrimbor’s cheek, and the latter could feel the first tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

He received the disastrous news in broad daylight. However, it was pitch dark inside of his aching heart. Maeglin was dead, he knew. He painstakingly pondered on this new, strange reality: the reality in which Maeglin didn’t exist anymore. 

He laughed the night that followed. He bitterly laughed, and cursed, and let those hot tears trail down his burning cheeks.  

Now it was dark too. Everyday his eyes searched for something- no, for someone. But there was only darkness to embrace him. Silently he cried everyday in that horrific cell of his, hoping against hope that a miracle would happen and that a pair of arms would graciously open to welcome him in a warm embrace. But he knew that such fantasies would not become true. They couldn’t become true. For he had been living a lie.

The door creaking open ripped him from his thoughts, a radiant light emerging from the door frame. His eyes narrowed as they tried to accommodate to that holy glow, and when they did, he could clearly see who was standing over there.

A grin split across his handsome face. A mighty ring illuminating from one of his delicate fingers. That spill of golden hair across his lithe shoulders. The Maia was everything that he could wish for. That wonderful creature had come to him as a gift from the Valar, and oh, how his unbridled love for the Maia burned within his chest.  

He couldn’t find the strength to recoil when the other approached him. He just stood there staring, as some ancient monument would gaze ahead, without being able to blink or tare its look away.

‘How is my pet today, hmm?’ the Maia purred, and Celebrimbor wanted to spit him in that lovely face of his.

‘Fuck you, Annatar!’ he hissed between gritted teeth, his blood nearly simmering in his veins.

_Slap._

The clout caught him off guard and he winced in pain, craddling his throbbing cheek in his hand.

‘That was not very polite of you, now was it, Tyelpe?’ Annatar calmly scolded as one would scold a dog. A hand stretched towards him, petting him atop his head, and humiliation stabbed through his whole being. He made to twist away from that sadistically gentle touch, yet it was a futile attempt as some dark puissance bound him to stillness.

Shameful tears poured down his face that night while Annatar thrust between his quivering thighs –for Annatar was in the mood for some rough bedplay that night-. The dark Maia successfully wrung yelp after yelp, scream after scream from his bruised mouth. And still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to abhor it.

For he dearly loved Annatar. With all that he had, Celebrimbor loved him. He told himself that now he was stronger, wiser, that he would not make the same mistakes as his family. But oh, ruin awaited ahead.

‘P-please...’ he moaned. 

‘N-no...’ he stuttered. 

‘S-stop!’

He fought-

No.

He tried-

Oh.

He failed.

He thought that-

He should have…

Ah.

It was dark. And that is all that Celebrimbor knew.


End file.
